Tempest
by megtries
Summary: Sometimes things don't go to plan. Sometimes there are grey skies. Sometimes there's a storm. Sometimes, however, you find an umbrella in the midst of a hurricane. Or- Bucky and Tony bond over a similar pain


AN: I got this idea because people who have metal in their body sometimes are in pain when it rains. Because of the cold weather sometimes metal in the body can cause pain and the pressure in the air hurts the scar tissue around it. This was originally just going to be Tony suffering because of the metal in his chest (a mixture of the shrapnel and arc reactor metal) but then I realised that Bucky's arm probably hurts too. I'm pretty sure based on the scene in Civil War with the plumbs he has feeling in the arm, so in the cold it probably hurt really bad. This is an AU ignoring Civil War. Bucky is chill with everyone (well, more like everyone is chill with Bucky). Hope you enjoy!

Tony Stark sat in his lab, light glimmering off the spilled oil in the center of the floor. The room was lit dimly, yet you could make out every detail. The rusted metal, the chicken scratch on papers, the notebooks spread wide open, waiting for someone to come and carve into them. Tools were scattered everywhere, all different kinds. From wrenches to hammers, even a few tools that no one but him could name. The miraculous thing about the lab though was not the tools. It wasn't the plans on the papers or the ideas in the notebooks. It wasn't even the man that lay under the bottom of a car, wrench raised against the stubborn bolt on the underbelly. The thing that stood out in the lab was the inventions.

Everything the mind could think of filled the area. Toasters that took seconds to make the bread crispy. Machines that could purify water with barely a penny spent. Armor that could withstand the weight of 16 elephants. And the suits. 100s of them, everywhere, not including the various parts that were laying everywhere the eye could see. Gauntlets shining in the corner. Boots sitting on tables, chest pieces under the desks. In the center of all the chaos was Tony Stark, oblivious to it all. Oblivious to the outside world. Oblivious to the pain that lay before him.

"Sir, there is a rainstorm forecasted to arrive in approximately 30 minutes." Tony, so caught up in his work, ignored the voice of the AI and instead finished screwing in a bolt on the car, moving on to the next one in a blink of an eye.

"Sir, did you hear? There is a-"

"Yeah, yeah, okay Jarvis. Where's the welder?" He pulled himself out from under the car, searching the mess of a lab.

"It is over by the mustang." He moved towards the hot red car over by the wall.

"Sir, there is a stor-"

"Jarvis, can it wait?" Tony smiled as he found the machine he had been looking for. "I'm about to finish this car. I think I might give it to Clint. I'm pretty sure he just walks everywhere."

"Sir!" He mistook the urgent tone of his AI's voice as irritation.

"What? It's not like it costs that much anyway, it's just an old one I fixed up. We both know I'm not going to drive it." He slid back under the car, welder in hand, ready to finish the vehicle. His mind spaced out, not noticing that Jarvis had spoken once again. He ignored it, but froze when he heard one word.

"-rain. It's going to rain sir, can you hear me?"

"Yeah, I hear you J." Tony said solemnly, stopping his work. He came out from under the car again and sat there.

"The other Avengers are upstairs watching a movie if you would like to join them." Jarvis told him, knowing the answer before he asked.

"Nah, I'm just going to go up to my room. How long is the rain supposed to last?"

"Only a few hours." The AI opened the elevator door for his creator.

"Yeah, just to my room then."

"Would you like me to send someone to make you something? Perhaps some soup?" The doors closed, and the elevator moved.

"No thanks, I'll be fine." Though Jarvis was hesitant, he knew there was no point to argue.

"Yes, sir." The elevator arrived on Tony's private floor and the sulking man went through his kitchen and into his bedroom. He sat down on the bed and rubbed a hand over his face. If he went to sleep, he may be able to rest through the rain and only wake up when it was over. With that thought in mind, he laid down on the stomach, head resting in the crook of his elbow, and closed his eyes. He fell asleep just as the sound of rain hitting the window filled the room.

He woke up drearily, rubbing his eye with a fisted hand, trying to get the drowsiness out of it. One hand went to run through his hair while the other absentmindedly rubbed his arc reactor. Just as the fingers touched the metal, however, pain shot through his chest. It was a dull ache, filling him up with what felt like anxiety but he knew was just uncomfortableness. He looked outside at the clouds. "Freaking rain." He murmured.

"I feel ya." He shot up in bed, groaning as what felt like a large dog sat down in his chest. In reality, it was just the ache. He looked over at where the voice had come from, his tired eyes now wide open. "The metal right?" Bucky asks, standing up from where he had been sitting on a chair in the corner. He walked over to the window and closed the curtain, blocking out the glow of the gray sky. You could still hear the pitter patter of raindrops on the glass window.

"What the hell man? Were you watching me sleep?!" Tony yelled, rubbing the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger, warding off a coming headache. Bucky, who had been trying to keep a cool and mysterious facade, became flustered.

"What? No! That- that's weird. No! I just got here!"

"Why?"

"… I don't have a good answer to that."

"Oh my god." Tony moaned, rubbing his nose harder.

"It's not like that, will you stop?!" He sighed, sitting back down in the chair. "My arm hurt so I asked Jarvis if there was anything he could do and he said sorry, no and he said if it was any constellation your arc reactor hurts."

"I'm pretty sure he didn't say 'constellation'." Tony's lipped curled up in amusement at the look of annoyance on Barnes's face.

"I can't understand him. Why does he have to be british?"

"Didn't you work with Peggy Carter?" Bucky nodded.

"Doesn't mean I knew what she was saying." He grumbled. "So, anyway, I asked Jarvis where you were."

"And he told you you could come in here?" Tony asked confused. He knew Jarvis tended to ignore him, but not on bad days like this.

"Well, no. He said 'Sir doesn't wish to be disturbed, please stay out of his room'." He mimicked the british accent poorly, causing Tony to smirk. "But I don't trust robots and I thought maybe he had killed you so I came in any way. You were sleeping, so I thought I'd leave but then you started to wake up so I was gonna sit in the chair and scare you."

"… you're an idiot."

"What?" That wasn't the response he had been looking for. He thought he'd get a "get the hell out of my room Barnes" or maybe a "if you don't leave me alone I'll set my robots after you". Definitely not an amused "you're an idiot". Not in a thousand years.

"I said you're an idiot. If you wanted to scare me, it would be best to jump out of somewhere, not just sit in the corner like a creep. There's an air duct over there that Clint's fond of using, it would have worked for you too." With that, the genius scooted more on the bed until his spine was resting against the backboard.

"So…. rain, huh?" Bucky said, trying to start a conversation.

"The worst." Tony agreed, shutting his eyes.

"Are you going back to sleep?" The other man asked. It was weird. The two weren't friends, not even close. Sure, Tony had agreed to let him stay in the tower, but that didn't mean he liked him. The two had a mutual understanding of each other. You keep your distance, I'll keep mine. You don't talk about your past, I won't ask. The fact that Bucky had come into the room at all surprised Tony, and frankly, it had surprised the soldier too. It was a spur of the moment thing. He had been bored, Jarvis had mentioned Tony, Bucky was just a floor down, and his arm hurt. He didn't know what he expected. Tony didn't what he expected. The two had no clue what was going on, but they had more in common than they thought. For one, they both talked when uncomfortable.

"No, I'm not going back to sleep. Can't with an airplane sitting on my chest." Tony complained. "What do you usually do?"

"Drink and wait till the storms over?" Bucky suggested, sinking down into the chair, rubbing his shoulder. The ache had been growing ever since he entered the room.

"Nah, alcohol messes with my arc reactor. And my brain. Can't invent while drunk, now can I?"

"I thought you were a playboy who loved to drink? At least, that's what all the magazines say." Bucky was confused. He always assumed that's where Tony was when he missed a team meal or didn't go to movie night.

"Well, the magazines can go screw themselves. I've been sober since the day Rhodey got the War Machine suit."

"Huh." Bucky had never thought of the genius as anything but a goofy, absent minded maniac. Now though, he was calm. Thoughtful. It was something he had seen before. "You remind me of Howard." Tony froze. "Oh, I mean, sorry." Bucky tried to take it back. "Sorry man, the others told me not to mention him, but I did, I didn't mean to it just came into my mind-"

"It's fine." Tony smiled at him. "It's fine." He repeated. "You're nice about it. You only knew him a little, Steve knew him a lot, he thinks he was perfect."

"Sorry."

"It's fine."

"Doesn't mean I can't be sorry." They both sat still for a while.

"How's the arm?" Bucky hummed then sighed.

"I'm used to it. When I was... the Winter Soldier... Hydra would, uh, freeze me when I didn't have a mission, so I had a bunch of cold experience. Plus, they would send me to rainy places all the time. It's not like they cared, as long as someone wound up dead at the end." He paused as Tony mentally pictured Barnes as the Winter Soldier, stumbling along with a metal arm. "How about you?" The question broke him out of his vision.

"Uh, well, I'm pretty used to it too. When in the cave I didn't really have the arc reactor, it was a car battery, and that hurt a hell of a lot more than this."

"That doesn't mean it doesn't hurt now." Bucky corrected him, an amused smile on his face. Tony sunk down more in the bed.

"You're not so bad, Barnes."

"You either Stark." The two sat there in the dark room, listening to the rain hit the windows. The area was filled with the sound of bullets hitting against the glass, the liquid amo caressing it's way down the sill and creating dew on the opposing side.

"Barnes?" Tony asked hesitantly.

"Yeah?" He answered without opening his eyes that had slid closed.

"Get out of my room." Bucky laughed at the empty threat. He wiggled down into the chair more, getting comfortable.

"Nah, I think I'll stay here for a while."

"How long is a while?"

"How 'bout till the storm is over?" Thunder struck outside and within seconds a large flash of lightning lit up the room, even though the curtain was closed.

"Works for me." Tony's rough and tired voice reached Bucky's ears and he smiled. Rain pattered on the walls and they could almost hear the clouds banging in the silence of the room. Wind howled outside, but the danger of the storm didn't disturb the two men in the bedroom.

They were safe.


End file.
